Happening Again #59
Cut-up ambience
Hello!
I can’t believe another two weeks have whizzed by. At least the weather’s getting a bit nicer. Sort of. Anyway, if you’d like to read more of my writing, I recently covered the upcoming reissue of Monolake’s ‘Interstate’ for Juno Daily. It’s a great album, and sounds just as fresh as it did 30 years ago.
Anyway, here’s what I’ve been spinning recently…
Are you a musician? Do you have a certain band or artist you think I should be listening to? Drop them into the Happening Again inbox: wearehappeningagain@gmail.com
If you like what I do and enjoy reading these little send-outs, you can drop me a few quid in my ko-fi jar:
ko-fi.com/happeningagain
Alex Zhang Hungtai
DRAS
Shelter Press
You know when you discover what you think is a fresh face, and you do some background research and you realise there’s a whole world out there? Well, not only didn’t I realise that Taiwanese-Canadian artist Alex Zhang Hungtai has been recording music since 2011 (first as Dirty Beaches, then as Last Lizard), he also appeared in the fifth episode of ‘Twin Peaks: The Return’, performing as Trouble alongside Dean Hurley and Riley Lynch. Who knew! Armed with a saxophone and initially recorded in 2019 inside Montreal’s Saint Joseph Oratory, Hungtai has delivered nine cavernous drone compositions on ‘Dras’, each of them haunting in their own unique way. Comparisons to Lynch had already crossed my mind, and make even more sense now, but there’s also an air of worriedaboutsatan here, particularly his more sinister, ambient outings - just listen to the eerie ‘Estado’. It once again looks like I’ve got some digging to do.
Mu Tate
LIFE OF MU
OST
I have a feeling this record might slowly become one of my favourites of the year. Mu Tate is the alias of Latvian-born, Berlin-based electronic producer Artur Strekalov who creates dubby landscapes littered with field recordings, cut-up samples, and vaporous textures. He’s been tinkering away since the end of the 2010s, and by my count this is his fourth LP. ‘Life Of Mu’ is a document of life, aural snapshots of the everyday, augmented by Strekalov’s spacey textures. Opener ‘World Has Ended For Me Many Times And Still Began Again In The Morning’ filters Gen Z anxieties over the state of the world through the wub-wub of electronics, while there’s almost a motorik feel to ‘Heavyweight’, a pulsating drone countering a steady drum beat. The album’s also segmented by three personal tales - ‘Vlad’s Story’, ‘Era’s Story’, and ‘Yves’s Story’. Each of them is peppered with atmospheric synths, experimental textures, and some warped vocal processing. ‘Life Of Mu’ stands on its own as an album, but also as a snapshot of society’s current moment.
Gobby
I GUESS BRO
Bandcamp
In a similar vein to ‘Life Of Mu’, I’ve been really enjoying this from Gobby. The New York City producer faces modern life with a shrug on ‘I Guess Bro’, a truly experimental collection of songs. Tracing a line from his time producing hip hop, this is 21 tracks of cut-up samples, processed vocals, glitch, and noise. Some tracks run under a minute, and will swing sharply from dark and dirgy (‘The Brutalist’), to bright and melodic (‘The Pianist’). “Party at my house / We are all hanging out” intones Gobby with the manner of someone actively trying to discourage you from coming to their house party. The plucky background strings of ‘Decline Recline’ are joined by distorted voice reminiscent of Tobacco/Black Moth Super Rainbow and Lynchian backwards-speak. And there’s a bubbling mania to the squelchy ‘Splice’. This is a proper flurry of sound ideas, clocking in at just under 40 minutes. A statement on information overload? Who knows. But it’s good stuff all the same.
Makeup And Vanity Set
I MADE THESE SONGS FOR THE FINAL SEASON OF THAT HUGE STREAMING SERIES BUT THEY DIDN’T USE ANY OF THEM
Bandcamp
The title speaks for itself, but this is a fab collection of synthwave cuts from Makeup And Vanity Set which I’m sure would have made a fine addition to any 1980s-influenced TV score. ‘Blank Tape’ has an sinister 1950s Roswell feel to it; arpeggios like Escher’s staircase climb around reverbed bell chimes on ‘High School’; and expansive synthlines crash like waves on ‘Until The End’. It’s great that these have seen the light of day, and can be enjoyed independently of “that huge streaming series”. No prizes for guessing which one.
Mega Drive
16BIT BLESSINGS
Bandcamp
This small selection of darksynth tracks from Mega Drive has also really hit the spot. ‘16bit Blessings’ is four gritty cybernetic monstrosities, each of them carved with a chiptune-edge as a call-back to the video game era the Dallas-based musician takes his name from. But these are not just chiptune tracks. ‘Infinite Ammo’ is guttural with its industrial peals, hissing away like some cyberpunk kettle, while ‘Sunset Strip’ is the most video game-y of the bunch. Spiky looping synthesis covered in a ghostly wind scores a level that ends with some gnarly electronic textures, as though the boss has just appeared for the final bout.
That’s it for this time. As always you can find my ramblings elsewhere in both print and online in Electronic Sound. I am going to tentatively dip into the world of microblogging again, so follow me on Bluesky if that’s your sort of thing.
But before I go, here are some things from across the internet that have caught my eye…
// I don’t normally include yet more music in this section, but there’s been a few releases that have caught my ear that deserve mentioning.
First up two more tracks from Boards Of Canada, taken from their hyper-hyped upcoming album ‘Inferno’. I didn’t expect ‘Prophecy At 1420 MHz’ to be quite so proggy and gothic, but I’m not complaining.
// The Midnight have also released a new song ‘Neon Odyssey’ as part of the launch of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign of the same name. I have never played D&D. But if you’re in the mood for some nostalgic synthwave, the song (and music video) are very good.
// Because I’m a normal person, I semi-regularly search for covers of Tangerine Dream’s ‘Love On A Real Train’ (which, gun to my head, could be my favourite song of all time). I recently discovered this one from Change Request, which I think really captures the essence of the song without being a straight-up copy.
// Japan has run out of robot wolves in its fight against bears. I feel like the headline says it all, but the article is fascinating. Robot wolves that are solar-powered and have red LED eyes made to scare bears? This is the sort of story I want to hear about in the 2020s.
